Blogging 101: Why Do I Blog (Part 2)

There are different reasons why blogging has gained popularity especially among young people. http://weblogs.about.com  lists down the most common reasons people blog as follows:

1. To Express (One’s) Thoughts and Opinions

Blogs or blogging provide a venue for expressing one's self and communicating his or her thoughts to a wider range of audience.

2. To Market or Promote Something

Blogging has become a very popular platform for promoting products, companies, or organizations and even advocacies or ideologies. As a form of mass media, it transcends the boundaries of countries or races. It has become a popular venue to gain support to socio- political and economic causes or issues being waged by the blogger or group of bloggers.

3. To Help People

Today's blogs are not only concerned with promoting personal interests. Many blog sites actually help people with their day to day undertakings- household tips, gardening, agriculture, technology and gadgets, parenting, education, careers and so on. Some blogs even offer advice to those who are going through personal difficulties on their health, marriage, profession and others. 

4. To Establish Yourself as an Expert

Blogs have also become an opportunity for people especially the young ones to establish themselves as experts on a particular field. Many of the blogs that I have come across with that give tips and tidbits on blogging were authored by men and women very much younger than me. Blogs transcend age as much as it transcends race.

5. To Connect with People Like You

Opposite poles attract but in the case of blogging, people who share the same field or passion usually meet on the same blog sites. At least that is what I've learned so far. In my case for example, my first impulse whenever I get the chance to read the local news is to check recent events involving the military.

6. To Make a Difference

I personally think this is one of the more difficult and challenging reasons to start blogging. Unless your blog is really solid and worth the reader's time, making a difference especially on people's perception or much more on their position or conviction is a difficult task. But then, no task is so difficult for people fueled by raging passion.

7. To Stay Active or Knowledgeable in a Field or Topic

During the last ten days that I have been consistent with posting my blogs, I've noticed a renewed desire to always stay abreast of what's happening around me. Truth be told, there's a certain kind excitement  whenever I find out that the number of visitors increased compared to the last time I opened it. This kind of anticipation plus the positive comments I receive ignite my drive to write more and more.

8. To Stay Connected with Friends and Family

I am yet to experience the full potential of this but one thing is for sure: more and more of my relatives are getting to know about what I'm up to these days.

9. To Make Money

Need I say more?

10. To Have Fun and Be Creative

I think this is really another good reason to blog or start blogging. To have fun expressing yourself or sharing your thoughts, and in return, learning more, is a good motivation to hit the publish button. Creativity has no limits. Human genius knows no bounds.

 Now, on a more personal note:

I started blogging mainly because I want to have an account of my own experiences. I want to remember the important details of my life hoping that someday, my daughter would be able to read them and get to know me better as a person. I want to keep a record of my thoughts for who knows when memory loss will hit us. Before we know it, we can barely remember what happened to our lives. Remember the movie 'The Notebook"? Life is but a fleeting moment.

I blog because there are many things better written than spoken. I want to have something to keep my mind sharp and to keep my desire for new knowledge burning. Writing reminds me that I don't have a monopoly of knowledge; that I actually know so little, hence the need to explore, to study, to research, to inquire and to share. While writing keeps my mind sharp, it also keeps my foot on the ground. It is more than humbling to realize that so many people know so much, and there seems to be no end to knowledge available out there.

 

There are times that I am tempted to write something about what people usually talk about just to make my blog interesting. However, I'm afraid that my motivation to write will be just to please other people and not because I want to express myself. I want to write because I want to tell a story; because I want to translate my passion for writing into something that would help other people in whatever way.